The Maine woods are brimming with new residents.

Wild turkeys, once extirpated in the state, are steadily making a comeback. After a 23-year long Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (DIFW) restoration project, the turkey population is such that hunters have shattered the record for turkeys killed in a season.

The official tabulation of the season’s hunt, which ended May 31, was 1,521 turkeys. That’s an improvement on last year’s record of 890.

The newcomers to the land, with an estimated state-wide population of 12,000, are becoming more and more conspicuous. The turkeys are most common in the southern counties of York and Cumberland along with Waldo from the mid-coast region. They are steadily spreading north, however. Brad Allen, the bird group leader at the state wildlife division in Bangor, believes there are about 4,000 northeast of Waterville.

There are so many turkeys that the spring hunt, which is restricted to the male, or tom, turkeys, has virtually no effect on the population growth, according to Allen.

But even if the turkeys are becoming easier for the hunters to find, that doesn’t erase the turkey hunter’s eternal dilemma: hiding from the turkey.

Jim Wescott of Windham, who has been hunting turkeys for 20 years, said the process is nerve-wracking. Dressed in camouflaged clothing, the hunter imitates the call of a female turkey, or hen, to try and lure the tom into shooting range.

“It’s like a chess match; you’ve got to fool the turkey. He’s very wary and he’s got very good eyesight. But there’s nothing more exciting than when they come right up in your face and gobble,” he said.

Four thousand hunters were issued permits this year, and they were drawn from a field of more than 15,000 applicants. Among those hunters was 11-year-old Craig Harrison, a sixth-grader at Reeds Brook Middle School in Hampden.

Though he doesn’t have the experience of Wescott, Harrison agreed that the hunt is thrilling.

“The turkey gobbling is different than any other sound I’ve ever heard. It’s really exciting and fun. I didn’t even mind getting up at three in the morning [to hunt],” he said.

Craig’s father, Dan Harrison, is a wildlife professor at the University of Maine. He realizes that without the restoration project, he would not be able to enjoy hunting with his son.

“This is a success story of a recovering species. I get so many calls about endangered species; it’s nice to think there’s a species that went extinct in Maine, and now it’s back,” he said.

The restoration project

Wild turkeys were common in Maine until the 18th century. They were abundant in warmer, coastal areas, especially if the land had a lot of oak trees to supply them with a steady diet of acorns.

But by the 1820’s, hunting and the clearing of land had extirpated the turkeys. It wasn’t until 1977 that Maine decided to follow the lead of restoration projects in other New England states and work on bringing back its turkey population.

In that year, Maine received 41 turkeys from Vermont and released them in York and Eliot. In 1986, Maine exchanged fishers for some Connecticut turkeys to further increase the population.

Allen said the population received another boost when the DIFW began a more extensive trapping and transferring program in the mid-1980s.

In the trap and transfer program, wildlife officials caught turkeys in southern Maine and began moving them north. This was accomplished during the winter months, when the turkeys were baited and captured in nets as they came to feed.

The DIFW only placed the turkeys as far north as there are agricultural lands, preferring not to locate the birds in commercial timberlands. It was considered too difficult for the turkeys to find food there.

Maine had its first turkey hunting season in 1986, when 500 permits were issued.

Allen and Wescott said the population has increased even more rapidly in the past several years, due to a combination of global warming and a pattern of cold, wet springs followed by warm, dry summers.

The cold, wet springs keep the young turkeys, or poults, from hatching too early. The warm, dry summers keep the poults from dying of hypothermia after becoming drenched.

“It’s been my impression that poult survival has been the key to the growth of the population to about 12,000,” Allen said.

According to statistics from American Hunter, Maine had about 6,000 turkeys in 1998 and 9,000 in 1999.

There are currently enough turkeys in southern Maine that a fall bow-hunting season for both toms and hens is slated for 2002.

The population also has been bolstered by the efforts of groups like the National Wild Turkey Federation. Wescott is a member of the Maine chapter.

The NWTF assists with the trap and transfer program, conducts hunter education programs and plants crops to make the habitat more conducive to the survival of the birds. Turkeys need food that can be found above snow cover.

Wescott said members of the NWTF encourage farmers to leave standing corn and to plant high annual grasses like rye and oats. The group also may plant alternative food sources like shrubbery, small-crab apple trees and barberry bushes.

Phil Bozenhard of Gray, a regional wildlife biologist for the DIFW, said he has been surprised by the resiliency of the birds.

“The literature says the birds need 5,000 to 10,000 acres of land without people. But they’ve been more adaptable. We have turkeys in backyards and some come to birdfeeders,” he said.

Westcott agreed.

“I can hear them gobble from my porch early in the morning,” he said.

The key to a successful hunt

The success of the project has meant that more hunters can now enjoy the sport. Extensive hunter education programs, many conducted by the Maine NFTW, have insured that Maine has never had a wild turkey hunting accident.

Bozenhard said that serious hunters begin scouting on the turkey’s turf for five to six weeks before the season begins. The evening before a hunt, the hunter ventures into the woods to call the tom.

Wescott said the hunter is posing as a hen to try and trick the tom into venturing out from his cover to mate. When the bird is in shooting range, it’s just a matter of pulling the trigger.

“The evening before you have to hoot like an owl, or gobble, to try to get the tom to go to roost. Then you go in before sunrise and imitate a hen. It’s pretty exciting when the turkey talks back a lot,” he said.

The hunter may use a variety of implements to call the turkeys. To use a box call, the hunter scrapes a striker across the top of a box. The hunter may also use strikers on a piece of slate; or use a diaphragm call, which fits in the mouth.

The reward, said Allen, is a delectable meal.

“As wild game goes, it’s as good as it gets. I’ve got a whole list of recipes,” he said.

For more information about wild turkeys, contact the Maine State Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, P.O. Box 202, S. Windham 04082.